“My inner voice was speaking loudly saying, ‘you don’t want to do this for the rest of your life,’” Kate Hilton told Career Buzz listeners (Jan. 7, 2015). She realized leaving her law career “would become more and more difficult. I didn’t want to be the frog boiling in the water.”

Kate’s working identity was becoming more ingrained, so she quit the firm, leaving a trail of “startled” co-workers, friends and family. What was she going to do next? “My strategy was, I don’t actually know what I want to do. I know what I don’t want to do. And I have this excellent package of skills that are transferable. I’m an excellent writer and public speaker,” and she’d even won a national trial competition.

So, Kate told “every single person I knew that I’m making a career change, and I don’t know what it’s going to be.” She asked them to set up meetings with “anyone you think I ought to meet.” Kate helped them to help her by naming a few areas of interest: “public relations, communications, project management, writing.” One of those meetings turned into an informal job interview which led directly to Kate’s next career, “where I worked for 13 years.”

How do the clues apply to you? Kate’s career evolved because she intentionally explored possibilities of interest through inspired ‘field research’ meetings. She did no online job searching. Take a page out of Kate’s playbook and use a more effective, proactive and empowering approach of ‘intentional exploration’ rather than relying exclusively on posted jobs. See how Kate’s career has evolved one more time, as a successful novelist.